A Best Of album has to hit me right in my heart and provoke a strong emotional reaction. A Best Of album has to engage my head and elicit a cerebral connection. Give me some intrigue. Show me your music has got personality. Extra points are awarded for doing Something Different. I want to hear music that embraces the best qualities of creativity. Strong musicianship alone is not enough. Many excellent albums fall short of earning a slot on the list. It literally pains me when I see some of the albums that aren’t included on my Best Of lists. But I listen to a lot of music, and one of the rare downsides to encountering so much great Jazz is that some of it won’t receive the recognition it deserves. So there you have it.

No matter how diligent a listener is and no matter how thoroughly that person covers the music scene, there will always be albums that slip through the cracks. The equation of scarcity of time vs. the overflow of music always leaves a trail of victims in its wake. It’s also a matter of subjectivity. I do my best to make objectivity the guiding force of all my decisions, judging each album’s qualities without consideration for my own personal preferences… at least, as much as I am humanly able. I can say for certain, my Best of 2015 list has ended up much different than my personal Favorites of 2015 list. No attempt to encapsulate the 2015 jazz recordings landscape will be fully comprehensive, but I humbly offer up my list with a confidence that these albums represent the best that 2015 had to offer. But it’s a list that’s likely to gain some addenda with the passing of time. The process of discovery never truly ends.

As with any Best Of year, 2015 is more accurately represented by the date range of November 1st, 2014 to October 30th, 2015. This ain’t no damn pop music… there’s definitely love at first sight with these recordings, but for a Best Of list, there’s gotta be some time allowed, also, for assessing the times for acclimation, absorption and endurance of these recordings.

What you’ll read below are not reviews. They are simple one-take thoughts, reminiscences, fragments of recollections, and brief opinions about how each album struck me both now and when I first heard it or anything I just felt like noting about the album as I quickly typed up these tiny synopses. I’ve provided a link to a more formal write-up following each entry, and that’s where you go to find out what’s what about each recording. Those write-ups are accompanied with embedded audio of an album track, as well as personnel and label information, links to artist, label, and retail sites, and anything else that seemed relevant at the time I wrote about the album. Follow those links. They might just lead to your next most favorite album ever.

This is an example of folk-jazz at its best. A collaboration between birds-of-a-feather, saxophonist Udden and bassist Moreaux is full of dreamy melodies, rhythmic chatter made from the stuff of rushing forest streams, and a small-town languor where the idleness of a back porch chair is a potent form of meditation. Joined by fellow folk-jazz savants Robert Stillman (on sax & organ), Pierre Perchaud (on acoustic & electric guitars and banjo) and drummer RJ Miller, all of whom have charted out similar territory in the jazz-folk sub-genre on their own excellent recordings. This music is just as intoxicating rolling out a thick, pretty melody as it is raising the pulse with some volatility and adding some edginess. There’s a lot of different expressions of jazz & folk fused into one, and this particular example is one of the more compelling.

27. Matt Owens – The Aviators’ Ball (All Made Up Records)

This is a seriously captivating album. The changing influences and forms of expression are like scenery changes in a theater production… transformations that can be subtle or massive, yet each time occurs with the seamless, unbroken flow of dialog, cohesive and with a clear perspective. Matt Owens’ debut brings in a couple trumpeters, a couple pianists, percussionists, a small army of vocalists, a wind quintet and a string quartet for this jazz-classical-pop project, and despite putting a lot of variables into play, it often comes off as a deceptively simple production. Its storybook nature flirts with the sense of an epic journey, and yet when it’s over, it’s easy to find yourself regretting that it all ended so soon. Zoe Kyoti’s rendition of her composition “Monsoon” is about as gorgeous a tune as you’ll encounter, but Riognach Connolly’s haunting yet almost casual rendition of the traditional folk song “Black Is the Colour (Of My True Love’s Hair)” is arguably the stand-out vocal performance of the year.

28. Till Martin Quintet – The Gardener (Unit Records)

I’m really enjoying how jazz musicians seem to be increasingly availing themselves of chamber music influences as another component of their modern jazz compositions. Tenor saxophonist Martin’s 2015 release is an excellent example of how the addition of instruments like cello and viola can fit seamlessly into the mix, adding a boost of harmonic warmth and melodic depth without changing the face of the project and turning everything into just another jazz with strings recording. The melodic implications, too, are endless, and it’s a big reason why so many of the tracks on this recording can, in one instance, ring truly of in-the-moment beauty, and in the next go off on an extended melodic trail that you hope never comes to an end. Joining Martin on this journey are violist Andreas Höricht, pianist Christian Elsässer, cellist/bassist Henning Sieverts and drummer Bastian Jütte. This is music to get lost in.

It’s a remarkable thing how vocalist Wade is able take the emotionally charged poetry & music of Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson and make it resonate with a power and sincerity that sounds as if the words and notes originated from her own heart, mind and soul. The battle of light and darkness of the originals is fully unveiled on Wade’s renditions of these 1970s pieces, resulting in music that is both intellectually challenging and supremely tuneful. Vibraphonist Stefon Harris is as much responsible for the amazing shadowplay that goes on here, and his voice on vibes is no less arresting than Wade’s vocal arrangements. Add to the mix a strong cast of bassist Lonnie Plaxico, guitarist Dave Stryker, pianist Brandon McCune and drummer Alvester Garnett (plus a number of guests), and it’s easy to see why the album’s central theme is able to capture the spirit of both past and present.

30. Valia Calda – Valia Calda EP (Self-Produced)

It’s been nearly a year since I first heard this debut from the Valia Calda quintet, and I find their mix of modern post-bop, free improv and Greek and Balkan musics just as arresting now as I did the first time this EP’s opening notes grabbed my ear. Without missing a beat, the music goes from a late-night jazz club cool to an ambling post-bop to a Frisellian eeriness to Mediterranean seaside ease, and the individual expressions are just as compelling as the transitions between influences. That they’re able to make this much progress to achieving a singular sound on their debut is no small feat, and hopefully this recording is a precursor to even bigger steps in that direction. But regardless of what the future may bring, this recording stands quite capably on its own merits.